“He’s—”
“He’s not peeing in my hair, is he?”
“Not sure.”
“Brando!”
“He seems to be inflating and then deflating.”
“Now’s not the time to observe!”
I went to move my head andEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
“Don’t do that,” Brando said, seriously. “He doesn’t like it.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like him sitting in my hair!”
Brando made another move, followed by a thickplunk. All of a sudden, the pressure lightened, and I could hear the frantic crushing of grass. “He’s gone.”
“What did you do? Did he make doody in my hair?”
“I plucked him,” he said. He leaned in closer, examining the strands. When he didn’t say anything, I started to panic. “Calm down. Your hair is good. He just became territorial all of a sudden. I wonder what it is about you that draws that response, Ballerina Girl?”
He was being serious. I sat up, clutching the blanket to my exposed bosom.
“Rest next to me,” he whispered. “Your back is going to get cold.”
I shook my head. I wanted to see his face in the moonlight.
He reached up and ran his hands through my hair. I wondered if he was double-checking for territorial bullfrog fluids.
“Tutto bene,” he repeated.All good.
“And if he had?”
“I would’ve washed you clean in the water,” he said. “Then I’d make love to you again to warm you up.”
I shivered just looking at the river, imagining how cold it was—or would it still be warm from the blazing sun that had refused to surrender to the new season? We were on the cusp of time reborn, the catalyst for change.
“Brando,” I said, looking down at a frayed piece of crimson plaid. “Why did you bring me out here?”
“To make amends.” He looked toward the house, and I should’ve known that he would’ve noticed me staring at it. He rarely missed anything that I did, subtle or not. “I should’ve married you here so that all my wrongs would become right.”
I reached out a hand and touched his face. “You thought that I wouldn’t want to make love in the house?”
“Yeah,” he said, his eyes bright with light. “You wouldn’t touch me.”
“Brando.” I leaned over, kissing him. “I’m sorry.”
“I can’t stand not touching you, Scarlett,” he said so low that I almost didn’t hear him. “The distance—it fucking breaks me, too. Breaks me more than you’ll ever know—ooof!”
I threw myself at him, not giving a damn about the blanket or the cold air. The paleness of my skin was bright in contrast to the darkness of his. “You’re all I know, Brando,” I cried into his shoulder. “You’re all I’ll ever want to know.”
He situated me so that I straddled him and brought the blanket up, covering my shoulders. He looked toward the house, worried that it was going to stop me from this—from him. I turned his face toward mine.
“I fear the loss of you because you are everything,” I whispered in Italian.
“Just as I rage because you are everything,” he whispered back in the same language.
